Wysteria was unknown to me until I moved to Georgia, and now it is one of my favorite plants.

The large purple flowers appear this time of year and look like large bunches of grapes. The woody vines are rather invasive, so many people here do not like them. Not me, though. An old-growth wysteria tree stops me in my tracks every time.

I really can’t stand watching the all-news channels right now, for plenty of reasons. I’ve no reason to either, thanks to The Agonist by Sean Paul Kelley. Sean has been working tirelessly since the shooting started to aggregate news stories from around the world. He is what Matt Drudge thinks he is: fast, accurate, and voluminous.

On the “Big Dog” Canine Island, It’s a land that’s fair and bright, The rabbits grow on bushes And you sleep out every night. The caves all are empty And the sun shines every day I’m bound to go Where there ain’t no snow Where the sleet don’t fall And the winds don’t blow On the “Big Dog” Canine Island.

“Focus!” This week’s Photo Friday topic is glass.

The play opens tomorrow, so my directing work is nearly done. Here’s a writeup on it in our local paper.

The play I was drafted into directing opens this Friday, so I spent both Saturday and Sunday at the final set calls making sure everything got finished. Still, Chris and I managed to sneak off Saturday night and watch Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai show now playing in Atlanta. This was our first Cirque show, and we were both awed by the performers, costumes, music, and everything else. Well, not so much the big post that partially obscured our view, but everything else, yes. My readers near Chicago might want to look into tickets, because it’s not to be missed. Also, I managed to find enough time and drained soil to plant a whole mess of peas, carrots, and radishes. It might be too late for the peas, but it couldn’t be helped.

I went down this morning to take pictures of the river where greenhouses ought to be, but it had receded some overnight. The high water mark was about a foot high inside the greenhouses, but everything inside survived just fine. The water wasn’t fast-moving there, so it merely rose up the legs of the tables. At its highest, it was only a few vertical inches and less than ten horizontal feet from the 100-year flood line. Our well house was under a couple feet of water, but nothing there was damaged. Assuming we get no rain today (it would be our first rain-free day in the last thirteen – there’s only “a chance of thunderstorms” forecast), the waters damaged nothing of ours. And who knows, maybe they’ll deposit something interesting on our beach on the way out.

“My Blue Taskmaster” This week’s Photo Friday topic is blue.

That’ll teach me to criticize the weather. I just had to wade into the greenhouses…

Nine feet high and rising…